Indian equities continue firm trade: Nifty holds 5,750 mark

Indian equity markets extended their gains and trading near intra-day high level in the late afternoon session on the back of buying in frontline counters and taking cues from European counterparts. Investors’ sentiments got a boost after Commerce Minister Anand Sharma announced a slew of measures including extension of the popular EPCG scheme to all sectors and sops for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to boost shipments. Traders were seen adding capital goods and banking stocks, while selling was witnessed in IT and FMCG stocks. In the scrip specific movement, shares of oil marketing companies continued to rise on hopes that the fall in crude prices will cut under-recoveries. Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals were trading higher after the company’s Cephalosporin API manufacturing complex cleared the USFDA inspection. HCL Tech, which reported its Q4 results on April 17, continued to trade higher.

On the global front, most of the Asian markets were trading in red taking cues from an overnight drop in US and European equities on renewed concerns about global growth. While the European markets were trading on optimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 5,750 and 18,900 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1169: 988 while 139 scrips remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 18,887.62, up by 156.46 points or 0.84% after trading in a range of 18,904.51 and 18,691.61. There were 21 stocks advancing against 8 declines and one stock remains unchanged on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap index were trading up by 0.56% and 0.39% respectively.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Consumer Durables up by 3.29%, Bankex up by 1.85%, Capital Goods up by 1.83%, Realty up by 1.74% and Auto up by 1.28% while, IT down by 0.58%, FMCG down by 0.33%, Metal down by 0.24% and Health Care down by 0.05% were the only losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bharti Airtel up by 3.67%, Tata Motors up by 2.87%, L&T up by 2.54%, SBI up by 2.47% and HDFC up by 2.28%.

On the flip side, Wipro down by 2.95%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.11%, TCS down by 1.08%, Jindal Steel down by 1.03% and ITC down by 0.65% were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, Market regulator - Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has notified changes in its Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDFs) regulations and according to which, IDFs can now extend the tenure of their schemes by up to two years with the consent of two-third of its investors by value. IDFs, which can be set up like mutual funds, can also invest funds collected for their schemes in bonds of public financial institutions and infrastructure finance companies. 

Further, the New Fund Offer (NFO) period has been increased up to 45 days (from up to 15 days) and the Specified Transaction Period (STP) to up to 45 days (from up to 30 days). Moreover, an IDF scheme would be allowed to invest up to 30% of its Assets Under Management (AUM) in assets from the current ceiling of 20%, which is subject to the condition that the sponsor/ associate retains at least 30% of the assets sold to the IDF till the assets are held in the IDF portfolio.

In case of unrated or below investment grade assets, overall investment of the scheme is restricted to 30% of the net assets, which is extendable to 50% with the prior approval of the Boards of Trustee and AMC. However, as per the notification, such investments can be done only if the AMC is unable to find the core assets such as debt assets or securitized debt of infrastructure firms, bank loans related to infrastructure for deployment of the amounts of principal. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,740.45, up by 51.75 points or 0.91% after trading in a range of 5,749.20 and 5,681.85. There were 36 stocks advancing against 14 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Axis Bank up by 3.77%, Bharti Airtel up by 3.72%, Tata Motors up by 3.06%, SBI up by 2.78% and IDFC up 2.76%.

On the flip side, NMDC down by 2.44%, HCL Tech down by 2.14%, Power Grid down by 1.36%, Jindal Steel & Power down by 0.92% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.82% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in red; Hang Seng slipped 0.26% KLSE Composite decreased 0.28%, Nikkei 225 dropped 1.22%, KOSPI Composite contracted 1.24%, Straits Times declined 0.06% and Taiwan Weighted was down by 0.23%.

On the flip side, Shanghai Composite up by 0.17% and Jakarta Composite up by 0.16% were the only losers.

European shares got off to a positive start; with CAC 40 gaining 0.79%, FTSE100 adding 0.18% and DAX rising by 0.30%